The Last Election

by Andrew Yang, Stephen Marche

Overview

A gripping, intricately plotted political thriller set on the campaign trail of the USA’s next—and because of crucial flaws in the electoral system—its last election; from former presidential candidate Andrew Yang and author Stephen Marche

“In former presidential candidate Yang’s first novel, doomsday looms for American democracy in the months leading up to the 2024 election . . . zinging broadsides make for lively and unsettling reading.” —Kirkus Reviews

The Last Election is a unique political thriller about an outlandish yet frighteningly possible—even probable—scenario in America’s near future, during the crucial 2024 presidential election. Though it is fiction, it is informed by Andrew Yang’s insider’s view from his run deep into the Democratic primaries in 2020. It is also a wake-up call to an America tearing itself apart.

The story focuses on two characters: Mikey Ricci, a political operative who has lost faith in the system, and Martha Kass, a journalist for the New York Times. In 2023, Ricci becomes the campaign manager of a third-party candidate who runs on a popular, centrist platform and whose frank and honest manner begins to gain ground. As it begins to appear that Ricci’s candidate might win enough electoral votes to upset the delicate balance of America’s two-party system, Kass stumbles upon a plot by the current Joint Chiefs of Staff to seize power in the anticipated chaos of the coming election.

Events unfold at the frenetic pace of the campaign trail, and as the electoral totals are tallied, it becomes more and more evident that no one will accrue the coveted majority of 270 electoral votes. If this happens, who wins? Will the electoral system collapse? What is Congress’s role in certification, and how will congressional leaders behave with their unprecedented individual power?

Will the American experiment end?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781636141503
Publisher:	Akashic Books, Ltd.
Publication date:	09/12/2023
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

ANDREW YANG is an entrepreneur and the cofounder of the Forward Party, a new independent political movement dedicated to restoring the promise of American democracy. He was a Democratic presidential candidate in 2020 whose campaign outlasted over a dozen mainstream political officeholders and attracted support from hundreds of thousands of everyday Americans, dubbed “the Yang Gang.” His best-selling books The War on Normal People and Forward: Notes on the Future of Our Democracy helped introduce the idea of universal basic income and ranked choice voting into the mainstream. His most recent work was the novel The Last Election, cowritten with Stephen Marche. Named by President Obama as a Presidential Ambassador of Global Entrepreneurship, Yang is the founder of Humanity Forward, Venture for America, and Noble Mobile. He lives with his family in New York.

STEPHEN MARCHE is a novelist and essayist. He is the author of half a dozen books, including The Next Civil War, The Unmade Bed: The Messy Truth about Men and Women in the Twenty-First Century, and The Hunger of the Wolf. He has written opinion pieces and essays for the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, Esquire, and many others. The Last Election is his most recent work.

Editorial Reviews

"Former Democratic presidential candidate Yang (The War on Normal People) teams up with novelist Marche (The Hunger of the Wolf) to craft a frighteningly plausible “what-if” scenario in this taut political thriller. Billionaire and Maverick Party presidential candidate Cooper Sherman is running on a platform that emphasizes universal basic income and ranked-choice voting. But as his insurgent campaign gains momentum, the entire system of American governance may be under threat: an anonymous source has shared audio on a New York Times tip line suggesting that high-ranking military leaders are planning a coup. The conspirators believe that the next presidential election could lead to chaos, with the Republican candidate winning an electoral college victory despite losing the popular vote by millions, and only the armed forces can avert bedlam. As Times reporter Martha Kass fights to get her editors to publish the story, and Cooper’s campaign manager, Mikey, wrestles with his boss’s potential complicity in the ensuing disorder, Yang and Marche masterfully ratchet the tension to near-unbearable levels. The outcome, in this worthy 21st-century update of the 1962 classic Seven Days in May, is just possible enough to give readers nightmares."— Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"The Last Election . . . makes a compelling argument that American democracy is in a perilous state and an urgent appeal that attention be paid and action be taken while there is still time."— Reviewing the Evidence

"The Last Election is really good. It provides a kind of backstage look at pieces of a political campaign and provides enough drama, danger and intrigue to keep you interested."— BVS reviews

"Andrew Yang and Stephen Marche have written a pulse-pounding, page turning thriller, but they’ve also crafted an excellent, elegant novel."— Narrative Species

"Andrew Yang is one of the most forward-thinking leaders in American politics. The Last Election is a high-stakes drama about a nation on the brink—and an explosive reminder that freedom is never more than a generation away from extinction. If life imitates art, then we should pay attention to Yang and Marche’s prophecy."— Miles Taylor, New York Times best-selling author of A Warning

"The Last Election is a turbo-charged page-turner that will have you on the edge of your seat—but it’s also a searing critique of our electoral system by someone who knows how the sausage is made."— Amy Chua, author of Political Tribes: Group Instinct and the Fate of Nations

From the Publisher

2023-06-21
In former presidential candidate Yang’s first novel, doomsday looms for American democracy in the months leading up to the 2024 election.

No one is safe in America anymore. The latest victims of violence include a female Supreme Court justice shot to death in Washington, D.C., and a Democratic state senator gunned down in Michigan. At the Republican convention in Milwaukee, fighting between anarchists and the Proud Boys leaves three dead and 17 wounded. The only hope for turning things around is underdog third-party candidate Cooper Sherman, a charismatic, straight-talking billionaire running on the “Unfuck America” ticket. Never mind those sex clubs he once frequented. “Scandal is no longer a barrier to a candidate’s success,” according to his campaign manager, Mikey Ricci. “It's a requirement.” And with the Joint Chiefs of Staff poised to seize power in the increasingly likely event that the election goes off the rails, there are graver concerns than a candidate’s peccadilloes. Not that evidence of the secret plot will be reported in the New York Times. “They'll find reasons not to run it,” thinks the tip-line supervisor who discovered evidence of the plot. Though the novel has the markings of satire, details—including candidates hiring “selfie consultants” and Kim Kardashian conferring with Matthew McConaughey about his “gun-responsibility social media strategy”—are too believable to laugh at. Yang says Marche “did the heavy lifting writing this novel” and that the “stories and recollections” of Zach Graumann, Yang’s campaign manager, “form the backbone of this book.” While their collective contributions don’t cut very deep, their zinging broadsides make for lively and unsettling reading.

A corrosive work of speculative fiction that may put readers even more on edge than they already are.

Kirkus Reviews